This invention relates in general to aural warning systems, and, more particularly, to aural warning systems for use with buses, specifically, school buses.
The most dangerous place around a school bus is the loading and unloading zone defined as a 10 foot wide area around a school bus. In a study originally developed by the Kansas Department of Transportation which is updated yearly by the Pupil Transportation Unit of the Kansas Department of Education, 1078 children have been killed in this zone in the years 1970 through 2001 in the United States. Of the 1078 fatalities in the aforementioned zone, 385 were victims of a passing car. Thus, 693 children were killed in the loading and unloading zone by their own bus.
By way of comparison, the number of children who are killed while riding inside a school bus averages 11 per year, or approximately 350 deaths for the 1970-2001 time frame.
Children are often easily distracted by activity around them and thus may miss the visual cues that an unsafe condition exists, specifically, that the bus is moving or about to move. Thus, there is a need for an additional warning system which is not limited to visual cues, but provides aural cues that a bus is in motion, or about to be in motion.
The present invention meets this need.
It is an object of this invention to provide an aural warning to persons proximate to a moving vehicle.
Further objects and advantages of the invention will become apparent as the following description proceeds and the features of novelty which characterize this invention will be pointed out with particularity in the claims annexed to and forming a part of this specification.